Nintendo’s “Big” Pokémon Sun and Moon Announcement Wasn’t So Big

OnlySP: Was anyone else less than thrilled about the “big” Pokémon announcement today? Maybe I’m just getting old, but simply announcing that a new entry in a long-running franchise is getting a new generation doesn’t cut it for me. I’d like a little meat in my announcements, particularly ones that themselves receive an announcement for said announcement ahead of time like this one.

Don’t get me wrong, the video was a neat little chunk of nostalgia for Pokémon’s big two-oh, but it didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. And I’m not talking about the leaks yesterday.

Well imagine if it was remade for consoles and how much time you'd play that :)

@beaks

See if they did a Pokemon game for consoles then I think they could cycle between a Pokemon Stadium game and then Pokemon Yellow/Crystal/Emerald etc

I would say Red, Blue, Gold, Silver etc but with a console game there is no way Nintendo would do "two versions"...the whole point of it is so you can go out and interact more with people and trade with your handheld but if you are playing on a console you'll want the full package which the third version of each gen usually offers.

Heh, I need to finish college first...if Emerald was released on consoles I might have an issue. Not counting all the gosh darn games that have been released this year already that we've had to cover, 2016 has hardly started and it feels like the holiday influx already...lol

Black(2)/white(2) and x/y were awesome. Return to form imo after a disappointing gen 3 and 4.

Edit: Hoenn was the low point anyway. Really didn't like gen 3 and didn't bother with the remakes. I said gen 4 was disappointing but I think I was a bit harsh there. It was good but it just didn't stand out for me. Can't remember b/w difficulty but I definitely agree on x/y being very easy. Maybe they'll balance that out in the new one.

(author here) They were good, don't get me wrong, and I had fun with them. But I'm honestly getting a little sick of "return to form" when there's so many somewhat archaic mechanics in the game. The breeding mechanics at least need a major overhaul and while training got improvements, I still found it boring and grindy. All it did was make it less arcane, not really fun. Not past the fourth or fifth Pokémon you had to get to max EVs anyways.

I'd really like to see them incorporate a digital pet game into the series, something you can do while not playing to raise your Pokémons' stats or breed them or something. Give us back the pedometer but tie it more intrinsically into the game. Let ME walk around instead of making me do it in the game to hatch the eggs.

I dunno, I just see a lot of potential for the game, but besides the training changes, they haven't REALLY changed up the formula that much. But yeah, I still enjoy it. Even the bad entries are fun.

There have been plenty of spinoffs on home consoles. The Colosseum series was great. But other than that, the game series is what Gamefreak wills. And they want it to stay on handhelds so people can trade with each other and be social.

I suppose Nintendo just hasn't decided its worth doing yet while developer GameFreak still feels that the main Pokemon games are ideally best kept on the handheld even though it has considered the possibility of putting the games on the home console. I mean, who better to make a home console Pokemon game than the main developer of the franchise? Of course, most of GameFreak's staff seems to primarily have development experience with making software for Nintendo handhelds, so they'd likely have to adapt to HD home console development. GameFreak generally has enough staff to handle development on a main Pokemon game and one small-scale title like what it did with Harmoknight (published by Nintendo) and Tembo the Badass Elephant (published by Sega).

It should be said that some people still may not know that The Pokemon IP is not owned only by Nintendo, it is co-owned by three other companies: Third party developers GameFreak (main developer) and Creatures Inc (works mostly as a co-developer) and The Pokemon Company (a joint partnership management brand between Nintendo, GameFreak and Creatures that's in charge of licensing,marketing and merchandising of the Pokemon franchise).

Of all of those I'd only really consider Mega Evolution a "game changer." And even then, it basically just added more content to the mechanical frame that was set 20 years ago. They didn't change how battle works, they haven't REALLY added any new systems (none that stuck with the franchise or had any weight to the game). They changed how you do EV training, but I consider that more of a quality of life change than anything. And it didn't make it any more fun, it just made it more accessible.

Don't get me wrong, they've done a great job balancing the system and it's still fun (I doubt the games ever won't be FUN), but I don't think they've done much to modernize it for a long, long time. I'd love to see breeding get a revamp like (or better than) training did in X/Y. I'd love to see a return of the pedometer but tie it to breeding and egg-hatching/raising. Let ME get up and walk around instead of just sitting at my desk and pushing left...right...left...right... left...right...

I actually expect the NX this holiday season, but that's just the skeptic in me. I think Nintendo's pushing to get that system out ASAP because they think the Wii U is a complete flop. So I could totally see this being somehow tied to the NX's handheld.

But you're probably right, I think that's a bit more reasonable. If they could somehow tie the two together - put the full game on the NX but let us breed/raise/train on the 3DS on the go, that would be a really neat addition.

Yeah, my point exactly. Why hype up the announcement and hold a special Nintendo Direct JUST to show us an (admittedly neat) video and announce the names of the games? You haven't given us ANYTHING. They should have had early gameplay footage, something to really sink our teeth into.

Maybe in your opinion but from what I've seen all day there is hype from all over. The trailer build up to the title card was really great and had a big emphasis on being connected (possibly hinting to an mmo hybrid of sorts?). Looking back at the trailer gave an interesting look into what they want to do with the game and it's looking like a much bigger scale if trucks are involved. We got that tease at the new Pokemon (I feel maybe either this gens Pidgey or possibly a starter?). They still also haven't announced if this is apart of gen 6 (like Black/White 2) or if it is a completely new generation (though concept art points to gen7, at least to me)

For the little we got, we got a lot and it's enough to drive discussion and speculation all the way to E3 where like X&Y we will have a proper reveal and I'm sure CoroCoro will leak a bunch of stuff before.

Dont get your hopes up, that connectivity slide was related to the shortcomings of the Gameboy capabilities and announcing something to look forward to in the VC release of 20 year old games most likely nothing more. Dont look for hidden context in Nintendo announcements you will end up probably disappointed.

As for 6.5 I believe since it is not some sort of sequel (guessing by traditional name) it is most likely guaranteed to be new gen. Also researched it and the video did a time line of main entries only (no Black/White 2, yellow,etc). I believe that fact confirms gen 7.

And why would they show anything yet. We all know every trailer Nintendo releases for a new game that is the first trailer shown always get a lot of hate. Star Fox Zero, Super Mario 3D World, Hyrule Warriors and so on.

Besides I am sure they are saving it for the next big Nintendo Direct.

"But what did we learn today really? We learned the Pokémon will be getting a seventh generation. Is anyone really surprised at this point? Just telling us the names isn’t worthy of a Nintendo Direct in my opinion and it definitely isn’t worthy of the game’s 20th Anniversary this weekend."

Agree. I don't even think we got gameplay footage, just the logos. The bigger news was, that you can transfer over pokemon from red, blue & yellow to S&M.

Although, it seems each time they announce a new generation, I feel like a kid again. I am very excited about it for whatever reason.